Informed consent: Difference between revisions
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However, the vast and overwhelming majority of circumcisions of children are performed to excise healthy, functional tissue from the body of a child who is too immature to grant consent. | However, the vast and overwhelming majority of circumcisions of children are performed to excise healthy, functional tissue from the body of a child who is too immature to grant consent. | ||
The Bioethics Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics (1995) considered the power granted to parents to grant surrogate consent for diagnosis and treatment of a child. The Committee says that a parent may give "informed permission" for investigation and treatment of disease. | The Bioethics Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics (1995) considered the power granted to parents to grant surrogate consent for diagnosis and treatment of a child. The Committee says that a parent may give "informed permission" for investigation and treatment of disease. The difference bettween informed consent and informed permission is unclear. When a child is ill, it is the practice to allow a parent to grant informed permission for diagnostic tests and appropriate treatment.<ref name="aap1995">{{REFjournal | ||
|last=Bioethics Committee, American Academy of Pediatrics. | |last=Bioethics Committee, American Academy of Pediatrics. | ||
|first= | |first= | ||
|author-link= | |author-link= | ||
|etal=no | |||
|etal= | |||
|title=Informed consent, parental permission, and assent in pediatric practice | |title=Informed consent, parental permission, and assent in pediatric practice | ||
|trans-title= | |trans-title= | ||
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}}</ref> | }}</ref> | ||
Infant boys are born with a healthy foreskin. No disease or deformity is present to be diagnosed or treated. Circumcision of an infant boy is neither a diagnostic procedure nor a treatment for disease. The limited parental surrogate powers to grant informed permission recognized by the Bioethics Committee do not extend to the granting of permission or consent for the non-therapeutic circumcision of a minor child.<ref name="aap1995" /> If the medical industry had actually followed this sound ethical guidance, then the circumcision of male infants would have ended abruptly. The medical industry has chosen to ignore this advice and allow parents to grant consent for non-therapeutic circumcision of male children, so that the physician income derived from circumcision may be maintained. | Infant boys are born with a healthy foreskin. No disease or deformity is present to be diagnosed or treated. Circumcision of an infant boy is neither a diagnostic procedure nor a treatment for disease. The limited parental surrogate powers to grant informed permission recognized by the Bioethics Committee do not extend to the granting of permission or consent for the non-therapeutic circumcision of a minor child.<ref name="aap1995" /> | ||
If the medical industry had actually followed this sound ethical guidance, then the circumcision of male infants would have ended abruptly. The medical industry has chosen to ignore this advice and allow parents to grant consent for non-therapeutic circumcision of male children, so that the physician income derived from circumcision may be maintained. | |||
Svoboda ''et al''. (2000) examined the ethics and legality of informed consent for non-therapeutic neonatal circumcision. With regard to ethics, they concluded: | Svoboda ''et al''. (2000) examined the ethics and legality of informed consent for non-therapeutic neonatal circumcision. With regard to ethics, they concluded: | ||
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</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
Adler (2013) considered the legality of non-therapeutic circumcision of boys. He concluded in part: | |||
<blockquote> | |||
This article has addressed whether circumcision is legal, and has shown that it is not. To summarize the law, boys, like girls and adults, have | |||
absolute rights under the common law to personal security and bodily integrity, and to freedom or the autonomy to make important and irreversible decisions about their bodies that can be delayed, like circumcision, for themselves. … | |||
… A physician's legal duty is to provide competent medical care to pediatric patients independent of their parents' desires. Thus, physicians cannot take orders from parents to operate on children for reasons having nothing to do with medicine. Parents' religious rights in turn are subordinate to their sons' absolute rights to genital integrity and autonomy, and parents cannot risk harming their children, let alone actually harm them for religious reasons. Furthermore, physicians and parents have a legal duty to ''protect'' boys from circumcision.<ref name="adler2013">{{REFjournal | |||
|last=Adler | |last=Adler | ||
|first=Peter W. | |first=Peter W. | ||
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|pages=439-86 | |pages=439-86 | ||
|url=https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1265&context=jolpi | |url=https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1265&context=jolpi | ||
|accessdate=2020-07- | |accessdate=2020-07-25 | ||
}} | }}</ref> | ||
</blockquote> | |||
==Information for parents regarding non-therapeutic circumcision of infant boys.== | ==Information for parents regarding non-therapeutic circumcision of infant boys.== | ||